The Real Chino
by JuleznStuffs
Summary: The version of Chino depicted in the show is pretty inaccurate. I decided to write this to show what Chino is really like. It's set in Ryan's sophomore year at Chino High School.


AN: I'm not going to lie and say this has a lot to do the the O.C.-it doesn't. But I've always hated the way the show depicts Chino. It's not like that! So I wrote this just to give people a sense of what Chino is really like. Please do a little research before you write you're next Chino fic.

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Chino had a bad reputation because it had three prisons.

There was the Men's Prison, notoriously overcrowded, the Women's Prison, that people always forgot about, and the prison for criminal kids, that half the people didn't know existed. So Chino became known as the ghetto, the run down scum bag town full of alcoholics, druggies, and criminals, where all the children had broken homes and happiness went to die.

Ryan sat in a stony silence at the back of the Honors English class at Chino High School. He didn't _want _to be in honors, he didn't need the extra work, but his consoler, had decided he was to smart for the regular class and had given him that look, as if she thought he was brilliant, and he had so much potential, and he'd just shrugged and went along with the schedule change.

An extremely tall girl with shoulder length blonde hair sat in front of him, her rather short friend with long dark red hair sat on the other side. It was silent reading time, and Ryan was incredulous to the fact that they were all actually reading. He hadn't even brought a book, much to the young twenty-five year old teacher's annoyance.

The teacher's name was Mrs. Carter, and Ryan could already tell she ran a tight ship. She shook your hand as you walked in the classroom, and the class responded to her shrill voice without compliant, listening to her, which was a change from every other class he'd ever taken in Chino.

They were reading 1984, and were supposed to get into study groups with the people around them. Ryan had been assigned to work with the blonde and the redhead, and some very tall, blonde hair blue eyed guy, who could have passed for the blonde girls brother, except their faces were totally different.

The girl, the blonde, turned to Ryan once they'd pushed their desks together. "Hi, I'm Gwen," she said. "Are you new?"

"Just to this class," Ryan responded, before quickly learning that the redhead's name was Anne, and the guy's name was Max, before the three of them got into the book.

"Her name is _Julia._ Of all the names, he chooses Julia, _my middle name _Anne!" Gwen complained to her friend, who was snickering. "She's a whore! She lost it to a sixty year old and was happy when he killed himself! And now everyone's-"

"Oh yeah, you guys have the same name don't you?" Max said, as it dawned on his face. "Ha, you're Julia!"  Gwen gave Max a look of utter disdain, while Anne rolled her eyes. Then the redhead turned on Ryan. "Have you read it yet?" she asked.

"Uh, no," he said, completely lost. "I don't even have the book,"

"Here," she said throwing her paperback to him. "I've finished,"

Gwen's jaw dropped. "You finished? Already? How? You have water polo, like, every night!"

"I read it during math," Anne said as if it was obvious.

"Jerk, I've been giving you my math homework, and you've been reading?"

"What, you didn't finish?"

Gwen looked sheepish. "Well I almost done,"

"You're mad because I know all about the corruption and evil and you don't aren't you?"

"_Yes_,"

Anne laughed. Max looked flabbergasted. "You guys _finished the book_?"

"Well we aren't all reading challenged Mr. _La-Bell_," Gwen shot back.

"Okay, that was one time,"

"You misread the word _label_," she deadpanned. "_Label,_ Max,"

The football player rolled his eyes. "Easy mistake,"

The discussion between the girls continued as they filled out the questions on the worksheet Mrs. Carter had given them without a pause, Gwen letting Max and Ryan copy because she'd rather not explain it to them. The girls rattled on about making cupcakes at Gwen's house and watching TV, Anne's quinceanera, and Winter Formal. Gwen made an impassioned speech about how the music at the dance would suck because their generation as full of ignorant people who only cared about clothes, and that Bob Dylan had been the greatest musician of all time, while Anne gave her a look and shook her head. Ryan looked at the questions on the sheet, all about symbolism, and character analysis and wondered, aloud, how they were able to answer them in paragraphs, while clearly not paying attention.

"I'm good at bullshitting," answered Gwen without missing a beat. "It's a good skill to have for college,"

"_This_ is your bullshit?" Max said. "You're a genius,"

Ryan was inclined to agree, her answers all had extremely good vocabulary, and well thought arguments. She shrugged. "I remember what I read,"

"No one in my last class could do this,"

"All the classes at Chino suck except the honors ones," Anne answered. Gwen and Max nodded gravely.

"I used to have honors Chemistry," Gwen said, "But, I suck at math, so I had to go to regular Chemistry with Sanders, and it is hell,"

Ryan knew what she meant. Sanders, a young man in his thirties, couldn't control his classroom and the kids spent the period making fun of him to his face and didn't learn a thing.

Max was talking to some cheerleader behind him, while Gwen and Anne had moved on, Anne complaining about her water polo coach. "She's insane!" Anne bitched. "All we did was swim laps! The whole freaking time! And now I'm all sore and I want to kill her! We have a game to day! She doesn't even know anything about water polo!"

"She's just trying to indoctrinate you into the swim team,"

"I know! I can't believe my mom made me go! No one came!"

"Hey at least you got to come over to my house and make cupcakes. And you got ice cream,"

"It's not fair," Anne pouted.

"Dude!" Gwen said, obviously trying to change the subject. "I got stuck doing a scene with that stoner kid Trent in advanced theater today!"

Anne snorted. "Sucks for you,"

"Well I mean, to be fair, it wasn't that bad," Gwen allowed. "But he smelled like cigarettes and pot," she complained. "I _hate _the smell of cigarettes. I can't breathe it,"

Anne giggled. "Our neighbors totally smoke marijuana in their backyard. I think that's what turned my dog stupid,"

Gwen laughed. "You live by all those mansions too! It's not like you live over by Vineyard Bank or anything,"

Ryan cringed. That was the neighborhood he lived in. All run down houses and a few with chain link fences around their yards. Bad Chino.

"Whatever," Anne shrugged.

"Yeah at least we don't live in Pomona," Gwen said.

Pomona was regarded as the ghetto of all ghettos. You locked your doors, you avoided the homeless, averted your eyes from everyone because they were most likely a gang banger.

"Seriously I mean, everyone thinks Chino is _so _bad, but really if you were to ask one of the girls who go here, like, half of the them wouldn't even know there is a prison, let alone where it is,"

Anne shrugged. "I know there's a prison,"

"You're smart though," Gwen said dismissively. "Really, it's just supposed to be a farm town, cow town California you know?"

"They've gotten rid of almost all the farms,"

"I know and it sucks!"

"Well, there's still a lot down by Prodo,". Prodo was the fishing lake and golf course in Chino, beautifully kept.

"Yeah..."

A boy behind Gwen said something among the lines of "Glen Beck is a genius," and Gwen turned to argue with him about politics, while Anne pulled out an Anne Rice book to read. Eventually, the teacher threatened Gwen and the guy with detentions if they didn't stop arguing. Gwen then complained to Anne about how she never thought she'd get detention for doing something smart, to which Anne laughed and teased her about how she'd always told Gwen not to talk about politics.

Gwen sighed. "Did your brother tell you anything more about the fight yesterday?"

Ryan slouched in his seat. His friend had been in that fight.

"Some guy got tased, that's all I know," Anne said, as if bored.

"It's sort of sad how desensitized to violence we are,"

"Uh huh,"

"It's not even like the majority of us start fights! It's just the cholos,"

"And you have no school spirit,"

"What am I suppose to do, run across the quad to watch like half the student body does? It's a good thing your brother up on the stage with ASB, prime viewing location," Gwen said sarcastically. "And besides, I have school spirit,"

"When?"

"During Milkcan,"

The Milkcan game was the football game held once a year between Chino High and Don Lugo High, the only school in the Chino school district viewed as worse than Chino itself. The schools had a fierce rivalry, and the Milkcan game showed it off. Chino had held the Milkcan (a literal honorary milk can that was held by the winning team) for almost 17 years. The week leading up to the game was always filled with viscous school spirit not usually held by either campus. Girls like Gwen, who usually viewed their peers with a quiet disdain, would rip you to pieces for dissing their school.

There were stereotypes for each of the high schools in the district. Chino just sucked all around, Don Lugo was an enclave of gang bangers, Ayala kids were mostly Asian and smart, with a lot of focus on sports, and Chino Hills High was filled with snotty rich brats with hard drug problems. These of course were stereotypes, but kids at Chino were fond of saying, "The people here only do marijuana, at least we don't do like, cocaine, like Chino Hills," to which someone would respond, "No one here can afford cocaine,".

All stereotypes.

In reality, Chino wasn't a bad place to live. It was mostly a suburb, average size houses with gardens and kids riding bikes around their neighborhoods. People sat in Starbucks with their laptops, and parents drove their kids to soccer practice and community theater rehearsals. There were good kids, and bad kids, and parts of town were run down, but mostly it was well kept and normal. There was a concert in the park series every summer, a senior center, a library with a summer reading program.

Chino was just a suburb, not a ghetto, not a cow town. The kids were mostly just kids. But still...

Chino had a bad reputation because it had three prisons.


End file.
